Saudi crown prince pledges ‘a country of moderate Islam’

RIYADH: Powerful Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman pledged a “moderate, open” Saudi Arabia on Tuesday, breaking with ultra-conservative clerics in favour of an image catering to foreign investors and Saudi youth.

The Saudi strongman, 32, did not mince words in declaring a new reality for the kingdom, hours after announcing the launch of an independent $500 billion megacity – with “separate regulation” – along the Red Sea coastline.

“We want to live a normal life. A life in which our religion translates to tolerance, to our traditions of kindness,” he told international investors gathered at an economic forum in Riyadh.

“We will return to the former state or affairs, to moderate Islam, which is open to the world, and all other religions. Seventy per cent of the Saudi population is under 30, and honestly we will not spend the next 30 years of our lives dealing with destructive ideas. We will destroy them today and at once,” the crown prince said during the Future Investment Initiative forum held in Riyadh. “We will end extremism very soon.”

Prince Mohammed, known by his initials MBS, said he would see to it his country moved past 1979, a reference to the rise of political Islam in the years following the assassination of King Faisal in 1975.

The early 1970s had ushered major change into the oil-rich kingdom, including the introduction of television and schools for girls.

The young prince is widely regarded as being the force behind King Salman’s decision last month to lift a decades-long ban prohibiting women from driving.

He has vied to modernise certain sectors in the kingdom, hinting that long-banned cinemas would soon be permitted as part of ambitious reforms for a post-oil era that could shake up the austere kingdom’s cultural scene.

Prince Mohammed’s comments came hours after the opening of the Future Investment Initiative, a three-day economic conference that brings together some 2,500 dignitaries, including 2,000 foreign investors.

Earlier Tuesday, Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund – controlled by Mohammed bin Salman – announced the launch of an independent economic zone along the kingdom’s northwestern coastline.

The project, dubbed NEOM, will operate under regulations separate from those that govern the rest of Saudi Arabia.

Saudi Arabia's legal system is based on Sharia law, outlining, particularly, harsh restrictions for representatives of other religions. For example, the public practice of non-Muslim religions is banned in the country. The crown prince also pledged to bring an end to extremism in the country in the near future. The forum participants applauded his words.

According to the US State Department, over the past four decades Saudi Arabia has invested over $10bn into charitable foundations in an alleged attempt to replace Sunni Islam with Wahhabism, an Islamic doctrine and religious movement described as "fundamentalist."